


We all wear a green carnation

by Petra



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gay Bar, Identity Porn, M/M, Sex Club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 10:33:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20113681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: Crowley visits a discreet gentlemen's club and is startled to find an angel there.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Jeeves and the Club for Inverts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24240) by [triedunture](https://archiveofourown.org/users/triedunture/pseuds/triedunture). 

> Thanks to Jamjar for beta-reading and making the story much better. All remaining errors are mine. Thanks to everyone who read a snippet and encouraged me along the way.
> 
> I did not title this story "I wanna take you to a Uranian club" but it was a close thing.

One sticky August not long after the turn of the 19th century, Crowley was a few temptations shy on the monthly quota. He generally avoided easy targets, but for once he accepted a light-voiced invitation to an "exclusive gentlemen's club" delivered with enough innuendo to make it clear that the gentlemen would be getting their ends off with one another. His main feeling toward people of that persuasion was that it was useful, having them willing to buck public sentiment and laws while still doing a bang-up job of torturing themselves and committing what they defined as "sin" repeatedly.

All in all, that made the little clubs they formed hotbeds of opportunity for Crowley. He could report any number of temptations and tally up the people succumbing to them without having to break a sweat. The human mind being what it is, it mattered more that they thought they were doing the wrong thing than that Heaven's metrics weren't the same as human ones. [1A]

There was a wiry old man guarding the door who wanted not only a testimonial from Crowley's human companions who were members, but their personal attestations that he had undertaken their sorts of lewd acts before. He had, on occasion, though never with these specific flighty gentlemen, who were convinced he'd been at Cambridge with them. It was the work of a moment to convince them that he had been passionately interested in every one of them, sequentially and concurrently. Percy, who'd fairly pranced into the club, turned a shade of rose when he made his statement to the doorman that made Crowley wonder exactly what false memories he'd created. Percy hadn't blushed when he got caught in the buttery with three girls at once, so it must have been something notable. The others all had their secret shames and triumphs, perceptible to demonic sense when necessary, and they went with the new material beautifully.

"He's a brick," they said. "Absolutely top-hole bird. One of the nattiest gents you could hope to meet."

Crowley was an expert on the process of befriending young people while having no idea what they were saying, especially when he took multi-year naps and lost track of the current lingo. He nodded along with their statements of support and kept an insouciant smile on his face.

"If you are certain," the guard said, tapping one finger against a heavy ash stick that he might have kept to chase off errant schoolboys who'd rather kiss girls than each other, and granted Crowley entrée into the inner sanctum.

One of his Cantabrigians took him by the elbow on the way through the door, while the rest buggered off to get buggered. Geoff, the one who was trying to be kind, whispered, "Now, keep a stiff upper lip, old boy. Sometimes the milieu takes new fellows a bit aback and you don't want to look like you've never fagged for the proper sort, what?"

Crowley said, "Quite," and relied on his thousands of years of experience with human inventiveness to assure himself that this lot couldn't have gotten up to anything he'd never seen before. He didn't make a careful study of all possible iterations of human misbehavior, but he knew in broad strokes the sorts of things they got up to when left to their own devices.

There were more men inside than he'd expected, half of them making eyes or doing something more vigorous with the other half. That was a very mild surprise, on the level of finding a penny in the pocket of trousers he hadn't worn since the French Revolution.

True astonishment of "Why is there a thousand-pound note in my sock?" calibre hit when he saw an all-too-familiar head of hair across the room and felt the local spiritual ambiance, which indicated that he'd made a positive identification. He was not imagining Aziraphale leaning against the bar, one hand on the shoulder of a red-eyed young blond who seemed as though he had only just stopped crying.

"Spotted someone already?" Geoff asked approvingly. "Fast work, old thing." Then he went too still for a moment and added in an undertone, "Is it someone you know? An old love?"

"No," he said, automatically, because he didn't recall Aziraphale's current human name, and the kind of young man Crowley intended to be would want nothing to do with a dusty old bookseller, even a dusty old bookseller who was somehow known enough in the circles of men who circle around men to be in that club, of all places. "That is, I haven't spotted anyone, and I don't know anyone."

"Then you've a lot of friends to make tonight, and I have to introduce you around before I take care of matters," Geoff said, and drew him towards the bar, fetching up near Aziraphale and his puffy-eyed youth.

Crowley didn't see the moment when Aziraphale recognized him straight on[2A], but he caught the momentary stillness out of the corner of his eye and heard a _sotto voce_ "Oh my."

It was entirely too mild an thing for anyone to say upon spotting an acquaintance at that establishment, as the venue was one for passionate extremes, and could only come from angelic lips trained to save outbursts for truly staggering events.

"And something for my friend here, on me," Geoff told the bartender.

"Gin and tonic," Crowley ordered at random, fully intending to make it into something drinkable as soon as it was in his hands.

"Coming right up, sirs," the barman said with a huge wink.

"There's a lad," Geoff said, and tipped extravagantly, avoiding looking at the crying man near them with an obvious effort. "See, you can have a jolly time if you put your mind to it," he said, too loudly.

"Excuse me," a mellifluous voice said from Crowley's right, "but you look exceedingly familiar."

"I didn't expect to see you here," Crowley said, wondering what alias Aziraphale was using. He gave Aziraphale the sort of once-over that would be impermissibly exhaustive on the street but which was _de rigueur_ in this sort of place. Aziraphale's human costume choices were staid, if somewhat old-fashioned. When Crowley got up to the level of his eyes, he realized Aziraphale had to be evaluating him in the same way, surely to keep up appearances.

Crowley's outfit was tighter than the current fashion dictated, and showed off the curve of his buttocks to good effect. He'd adjusted the tailoring to inspire lustful thoughts in anyone who happened to look at him, with the inclinations of the club's members in mind.

Aziraphale's calm eyes did not suggest that he was experiencing anything of the sort. His smile was small and impersonal in a way that cut Crowley, despite his denying their acquaintance. "Nor did I expect to see you," he said. "Do forgive me for interrupting, my dear."

"There's nothing to forgive, Cyril," said Geoff, apparently to Aziraphale. Geoff still held to Crowley's arm. "Cyril, in this place, this is my, ah, friend, erm, Antonio. " He gave Crowley a speaking glance, as if the concept of using a false name might offend him. Pseudonyms were extremely handy when it came to convincing humans that while what they were doing was potentially deleterious to them, they could carry on full steam ahead under an assumed name--however shallow the disguise--and not feel the consequences till later.[3A]

"A pleasure to see you, Antonio." Aziraphale held his hand out, and Crowley shook it, ignoring the faint frisson of divine energy that came with the contact. "We're all very informal here, you see."

"First names only, old thing," said Geoff, laying a finger alongside his nose. "And even those are best kept behind the closed doors, what?"

Crowley had some trouble not replying to those rhetorical formations with "What?" but stopped himself before he blew his cover as a brash youth. "I'll remember. How do you do, Cyril."

"How do you do." Aziraphale put his hand on the shoulder of the blond man with him. "And this is Cecil, Antonio." While Crowley was shaking hands with Cecil and how-do-you-doing, Aziraphale went on, "Cecil, you and Geoff already know each other, don't you, my dear?"

That brought a new set of tears welling in Cecil's eyes as he looked at Crowley's companion. "Good evening," he said, his stiff upper lip in danger of drowning under the fresh onslaught. "Geoff," he said, entirely separate from the greeting.

"Cec," Geoff said, taking a step toward him. "We need to talk."

"Do we?" Cecil asked with damp, strained dignity. "You seem quite busy." Crowley made a mental note that he'd incited jealousy, with something of a sense of accomplishment.

"You know," Geoff said, glancing at Crowley and Aziraphale uncomfortably. "Look, Antonio is a jolly chap, but he's my friend before anything else. Well, nowadays he is, but you know how these things can be."

"I'll just look after Antonio while you two catch up, shall I?" Aziraphale asked, his voice terribly mild.

"I don't want--excuse me," Cecil said, and dashed off toward the right of the bar, toward a hallway.

"Wait," Geoff said, and followed after him.

That left Crowley oddly bereft, since anyone who might have noticed him come in was now observing the dramatic tableau of Geoff and Cecil, and several of the gentlemen in the room nudged their companions and lowered their voices to make some sort of remarks.

"It's a good show we don't stand on ceremony here," Aziraphale said, clapping Crowley on the shoulder.

The supernatural tingle of his touch was stronger this time. "I imagine so, or I'd have a hard time meeting anyone else."

"Would that be so terrible, my dear?" Aziraphale asked softly, his thumb brushing the fabric of Crowley's jacket. It felt a great deal more momentous than walking into a club crowded with men who kiss one another.

"It would put a crimp in my plans for the evening."

"How ambitious," Aziraphale said, and chuckled. "And here I was pleased with myself that the handsomest new fellow tonight was talking to me."

The flirtatious words doubtless only meant that Aziraphale was in good spirits. Exactly how some bloke named Antonio was supposed to react to them, Crowley wasn't sure--he dealt more in the business end of pleasures--or in inspiring them, then leaving--than in pussyfooting around them when it came to humans' lustful interaction. He was prepared to flirt with humans, but the idea of flirting with Aziraphale, who knew him and knew he didn't flirt except on business, left him fumbling for an appropriate response. He said, "Thank you," which seemed inadequate, and attempted to return the compliment with, "It looks like Cecil is lucky to have you as a friend," complete with a gesture at Aziraphale's tear-soaked shoulder.

"That's very kind, dear boy," Aziraphale said, lowering his eyes and smiling. "He and his, ah, particular friend have had some trouble lately, and listening to him was the least I could do."

It was by no means the least anyone could do, including Aziraphale, who had spent many a long night while humans were wracked with emotions reading to himself, to Crowley's certain knowledge. It was a far cry from the least Crowley could do, which was best illustrated by the amount of sleep he'd gotten in the last century and the way he'd endured the fourteenth century by the skin of his gritted teeth.

It was, however, a polite thing to say, in keeping with the kind of gentleman who frequented clubs rather than popping in on a highly irregular basis for the purposes of padding paperwork.

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," Crowley said. "Do you often lend your fellow man this sort of sympathetic shoulder?"

"On occasion," Aziraphale said, with a small, smug smile that suited "Cyril" better than it fit on an angel's countenance. "When they need to be reassured that all is not lost and the world is, in fact, a good place."

Crowley scoffed reflexively. "It is not," he said, before he considered what a frivolous university boy might actually think about the matter--he was playing that part, but not well. "The world is full of people who are out to get you. Surely you've seen enough to know that's true even within these walls." He waved a hand at the club's surroundings.

"Out to get me?" Aziraphale looked as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. "Why, there are certainly malign forces at work in the world, but I think they are quite outweighed by the positive ones. How else would you explain so many charming fellows being together in a place like this?"

Some of the charming fellows had started slipping under the tables together, or into darker corners of the room, without much regard for the rest of the club. Either that, or there were exceedingly large, inexplicably moaning rats on the premises. "That depends entirely on your definition of 'charming,' doesn't it?"

Aziraphale looked around, still seeming innocent, or at least in his persona of a roguish gentleman among many like him. "There are any number of pleasant men here, my dear boy."

He said it lightly, and it landed on Crowley's ears like a ton of angel feathers: bright, sparking full of energy, and smothering all his common sense. "How many of them do you know well?" he asked, putting the rudest spin on 'know' since the penning of a certain volume.[4A]

"Enough."

Another ton of feathers fell on Crowley's head with that one, and he staggered a bit before rationalization kicked in: surely the angel meant it in the sense of being familiar with those people, not anything like what Crowley was implying. "Have they all sobbed out their heartbreaks to you like what's-his-name?" he asked, with a gesture in the direction that Geoff and Cecil had gone.

"Some, on the rare occasion that it's been necessary, yes, I suppose so, but I have had more pleasant forms of conversation with most." Aziraphale did not wink lasciviously at him.

That did not make matters easier, nor did it ease the fit of Crowley's trousers, which were entirely too tight for even mild flirtation.

"There must be some master conversationalists here if they can amuse someone with your refined palate."

That got Aziraphale to lower his eyes and blush, however faintly. "You are too kind, my dear, to a gentleman you have only just met."

So they were going to keep on with the charade, then; there were enough humans within hearing that they might as well. If that was the case, Crowley was going to get in some of the temptation that he came to the club for. "There are plenty of strapping young men around, but most of them are not as gentle gentlemen as you seem to be." He dropped his voice very slightly, not enough to keep curious ears from hearing him, but enough to pretend that that was his intention. "Are you looking for company for the evening?"

Aziraphale's blush deepened, which was gratifying. "I rather think I've already found some, don't you?"

Crowley studied his face for a moment. "Your friend has gone."

"As has your friend. And yet, here we still are." Aziraphale gestured to the space between them, which had been steadily shrinking as they talked.

Other fellows around them had diminishing personal space, so there was nothing notable about that, or anything else about them that might catch someone's eye other than Crowley's habitual dark glasses and Aziraphale's out of date clothing, and even those would only be remarkable long enough to be dismissed. Among so many men eager to do much more than converse with their fellows, it was easy to be close to Aziraphale here.

The conversation was not accomplishing Crowley's objectives for the evening in any way, but it was good fun in and of itself. He toyed with the idea of lying on the forms--nothing he hadn't done before--and claiming the founding and continuation of the club as his idea.

But with the angel's presence, there came a host of other questions, such as "Precisely what is an angel doing in a den of iniquity?" that wouldn't be appropriate to ask in front of the hoi polloi in so many words. "Have you been coming here long?" he asked instead.

"Some years, yes. Almost since the club was founded, now that I think about it."

Crowley wondered how long that had been, exactly, and whether he'd been asleep at the time. It wasn't his responsibility to lead Aziraphale into or out of perilous situations where he might find assorted gentlemen queuing up to complain of broken hearts or importune him for earthly pleasures, but even so, he wished he'd known about this involvement sooner. "Then you're one of their major patrons, are you?"

"One could put it that way." Aziraphale winked at him--a flash of his usual humor rather than the mask he was putting on. "As George is the patron of England."

"A saint in our midst?" Crowley widened his eyes deliberately, knowing that it wouldn't be visible to humans behind the glasses and that Aziraphale knew him well enough to see his false amazement anyway. "That seems improbable."

"Only because you are new here, my dear Antonio." Aziraphale nodded to a pair of men to his right. "If you asked those gentlemen, or the fellow in the bright blue tie and his friend, or any number of others here, you'd find that I've helped them in their trials of the heart."

"I wasn't aware that hearts were much involved here."

Rather than blushing, Aziraphale straightened his spine at that, assuming an aspect several miles short of angelic fervor but still hearkening in the same direction. "They often are, especially for those who have been coming here the longest. Why, just last week we had a sort of ceremony for a pair of patrons that would've served as a marriage, if it were allowed outside these walls."

Crowley laughed, though it only made Aziraphale look more determined to carry his point. Aziraphale went on, "If love were not involved here, even in the briefest interactions, then there would be no hearts to break, only liaisons that ended. I think you greatly underestimate your fellow man's capacity for affection."

"Or you overestimate it, and the gents who had that ceremony were having a joke on you and everyone else." Crowley sniffed.

"I'll prove it to you," Aziraphale said, taking Crowley's hand. "Sit with me this evening and I will introduce you to any number of men who have conceived deep feelings for one another."

"Why would they come here if they have found someone already?"

That made Aziraphale frown sadly. "Where else can they spend time with the one they love without censure? Really, dear boy, it's not as though they can walk down the street arm in arm, not in England, not anymore."

It had been some time since that was the fashion, Crowley knew, though he hadn't been entirely certain when the customs changed. Not that long ago, men were known to kiss one another upon greeting or parting without anyone making a great fuss, but in this age that called itself modern, such things were frowned upon and driven into spaces like the club where they now sat.

"But you could pick any two blokes and tell me they're the apples of each other's eyes, and not be telling the truth," Crowley argued. "How would I know they hadn't met five minutes beforehand?"

"Surely you can feel the difference between a long-term affair du coeur and a momentary fling," Aziraphale said, somewhat testily. "If nothing else, the men involved in a passion of the moment won't bother to speak to me at all, as they'll be too wrapped up in each other."

"Fine, show me your best and your worst," Crowley said.

Aziraphale did just that, walking him through the club to point out any number of pairs. Some of them were boys who seemed taken with each other, like the ones Crowley had arrived with, who were now sitting in a group, some in each other's laps. Some were middle-aged men sitting knee-to-knee with other well-dressed fellows of their own age. Others were older gents with young paramours, or vice versa. Aziraphale described one such pair as "darling lovebirds" and Crowley could not keep himself from sniggering.

"One of your 'darling lovebirds' is in his dotage and the other is barely breeched," he pointed out. "That's a young man who knows which side his bread is buttered on, not one out of his mind with fondness."

"They've been together for two years."

"Then the elder is generous, nothing more."

Aziraphale scowled at him briefly. "If you saw them regularly, you would understand that their relationship goes deeper than what you imply."

"I'd have to come back for that, wouldn't I?"

"I suppose you would, at that. You may, of course." Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. "We pride ourselves on having a welcoming demeanor to all gentlemen of the right persuasion."

"But--" he fumbled for Aziraphale's human alias "--Cyril, isn't pride a sin?"

"I meant it metaphorically," Aziraphale said firmly. "There can be no sin in extending hospitality to like-minded men for the purpose of introducing them to other gentlemen who enjoy their company."

"Tosh, of course there can." Crowley glances over his shoulder at some of the couples Aziraphale had indicated before, some of whom are quite openly demonstrating the sin of lust, while others engage in a mixture of envy and sloth nearby. Crowley hasn't needed to egg them on anymore than planting the suggestion in their fertile minds that they are in an excellent place to kiss, and if their hands happen to wander inside their companions' clothing, then what of it?[5A]

"I see some of them are a bit indiscreet this evening." Aziraphale waved his hand and three pairs disengaged long enough to repair to a hallway off the main room. "Generally we expect members and guests to keep some measure of decorum in public spaces and restrain their baser instincts to the private rooms."

"Private rooms?" Crowley asked. "What kinds of affection go on there?"

"The deepest appreciation of one another's company," Aziraphale said primly, as if he was not discussing spaces set aside for no purpose other than assignations of the quickest and dirtiest nature.[6A] Perhaps Cyril saw nothing wrong with such things.

Crowley laughed. "That, I'd like to see."

"Would you, indeed? Well, if you've the gents' permission, then by all means go ahead, but generally a private room is to be kept private until it's vacated."

That gave Crowley a moment's pause, as he hadn't expected the angel to endorse anything of the kind. "What a wicked suggestion."

"Is it wicked to say you should ask someone's leave before you spy on them? I rather think it's the opposite, but if you like, my dear."

"I'm not inclined to go peeping at keyholes." Even Antonio, if he existed, would think little of people who did that.

"Just as well. Though whatever you get up to, you'd best ask the gentleman first."

"Always," Crowley said. "Free acceptance of temptation is my guiding principle."

"Then perhaps you'll fit in well enough here," Aziraphale's smile was small but seemed real enough.

"I reckon there are some places I'd fit just fine," Crowley said, leering. [7A]

"Of that I have no doubt." Aziraphale nodded and gestured to a door leading into another room. "For example, there is the club's library."

Crowley paused for a moment at the mere suggestion that he would be at home in a library, then wondered what books such an establishment would stock. "Is it well-illustrated?" he asked. "Plenty of French postcards in the books?"

"There are some, when people forget themselves and their manners." "Manners" bore enough weight in that sentence that it creaked with meaning. [8A] "Most club members leave the books in much the same state as they found them, however, and so are permitted to return to the library whenever they wish."

A sneaking suspicion tapped Crowley on the shoulder. "Cyril, would you by chance be the club's librarian?"

Aziraphale chuckled. "I've served in that role for some time now, yes."

The images of possibility that had been myriad in Crowley's mind quickly winnowed down to a few improving volumes on gentlemanly behavior, and the occasional snap of someone showing a bare shoulder. "How public-spirited of you."

"Well, someone must take care of such things, mustn't they, and better me than someone who might allow the books to come to harm." Aziraphale pursed his mouth. "The things I have found some of our members doing in the library do not merit description."

"I think they might," Crowley said, more for the sake of argument than anything else.

"There are only a few grounds on which one can be expelled from this club, and defiling the library is one of them."

"Ah," Crowley said, and sent a slight amendment to some of the couples nearby whom he had been tempting to do that very thing. Two of the pairs redirected their steps toward the private rooms Aziraphale had indicated earlier, and another couple ended up kissing against a wall.

"One must maintain some standards," Aziraphale said firmly.

"Yes, of course," Crowley agreed mildly. There really was nothing like the maintenance of standards for making humans do the strangest things, occasionally against the wainscoting.

"But you didn't come here to listen to me natter on about books all night, did you, my dear?"

Crowley had spent any number of nights listening to Aziraphale do just that, but rarely when his reports were looming. Besides, having a consistent companion for the last interval had stopped any number of men from approaching him and requiring the sort of one-on-one attention Crowley rarely wanted to give humans. "Don't sell yourself short. It's been better for me than you imply."

"Has it?" There was a gleam in Aziraphale's eye. "Perhaps you'd like to do it again sometime?"

"Perhaps," Crowley said. "For now--" he glanced at the scholars he'd come in with, some of whom were in flagrante violation of club norms, with only the faintest nudges from him "--I should see to my friends."

Aziraphale followed his gaze. "Ah. It seems one of them is getting a right good seeing-to without your assistance. Not an intimate of yours, I hope?"

Was the angel jealous? Crowley studied his face but saw nothing beyond the benign countenance of Cyril, the club librarian. "I know them all quite well."

"Do you."

"Yes, or they wouldn't have vouched for me at the door."

"Are you close?" Aziraphale asked.

"I don't live in their pockets." He lived, as much as he lived anywhere, in a fashionable flat in Kensington, and if he was in and out of students' digs, there was no one to remark on it but those students, who were much too distracted with their own undertakings to worry about Crowley's.

"I see," Aziraphale said, his voice gone a bit chilly.

Crowley wanted some of the camaraderie back again, but wasn't sure how to engender it without putting a hand on Aziraphale's arm or making a good-old-boys' joke that might backfire and offend him. "They're friends, that's all."

"That's all?" A slight softening, perhaps? "Then you have no particular friend here tonight?"

There were too many possible answers to that question, and Antonio might have a different inclination, but-- "There's only one person I wanted to spend the evening with," Crowley said.

"Then I'm sorry to have kept you from him," Aziraphale said, and made to storm off.

Crowley touched him then, a hand on his shoulder, conscious of where his wings would be if they were manifest at the moment. "Don't be ridiculous."

Aziraphale gave him a resentful look but did not remove Crowley's hand from his person. The contact between them twanged with tension, both of the lusty sort that resonated around the room and of the sort that came from the closeness of an angel and a demon in odd conjunction. "You are far too--you could have the regard of anyone in here, if you wanted it, not just the fusty old librarian."

"True," Crowley said with a grin, "but you're the one I've been talking to."

"Out of inertia, surely, because we began so long ago."

"Not just that."

"Fiddlesticks," Aziraphale said, and brushed his hand off. Turning away from him again, he said, "Go and find someone more your own age to flirt with, my boy."

"How could I possibly?" Crowley asked the empty air after Aziraphale had left him alone in the middle of the room.

He was alone for a few breaths--whether those were in a normal human cadence or not, he wasn't entirely aware--before one of his Cambridge men came up to him and said with a moue of sympathy, "Failed to crack his spine, did you? He's a tough nut, our Cyril."

"I can see that," Crowley said, and turned his attention to the men in the club who were actively seeking out lasciviousness, rather than trying to entrap it all in books.

The encounter niggled at the back of his mind for some time afterward, as it was more memorable than diverting the gentlemen of the club into one another's arms in increasingly public ways, as he did for the rest of the night. Had Aziraphale meant anything by his attentions? Had there been something between them, truly, that hadn't been there before, or was it just the sheen of nearby humans' lust that confused Crowley's memories of the incident?

He made up a pretext to stop by the bookshop the next week, but it was locked and the lights in the flat were dark. As a demon, he could have engaged in a spot of burglary, but as the only supernatural neighbor Aziraphale had, he felt constrained to better behavior, so he left the bookshop unmolested.[9A]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1A] The entire book of Leviticus was not, in fact, Crowley's invention, any more than the Talmud was. Still, he found them and all other human discourses on sin extremely helpful when it came to what humans berated themselves for. Angelic and demonic definitions of "sin" had more to do with what directly hurt people or what violated cultural norms than the actual dictates of God. [return to text]
> 
> [2A] There were any number of things happening in the club to which "straight on" could not be applied, and which even demons did not necessarily want to investigate too directly. [return to text]
> 
> [3A] Many anonymous projects and projects undertaken under false names fell into Crowley's purview to the point where he claimed to have inspired them. He found some of them impressively Byzantine, such as the Archive of Our Own, and in general left the humans involved to their own devices, as they tended to foment dissatisfaction well enough without his interference. [return to text]
> 
> [4A] Crowley had been something of an influence in various translations of holy texts, mostly to put in bits that people could snigger at. Proper reverence was wholly against his brief. The bit about God's pronouns was an in-joke with himself that he intended to see carried across as many languages as possible. [return to text]
> 
> [5A] Shipping coals to Newcastle is not intrinsically sinful, but it can in some circumstances constitute greed, another classic. [return to text]
> 
> [6A] Crowley would be surprised and disappointed to find that some members preferred to play backgammon in the private rooms, as all the gallivanting about in the public space destroyed their ability to concentrate on the game. There were a number of minor peccadillos involved in gaming, but nothing to write home about, as it were. [return to text]
> 
> [7A] Double entendres are neither the province of Heaven nor Hell, as both consider puns to be below acknowledgement. They do, however, constitute some of humanity's greatest achievements in the realm of annoying one another. [return to text]
> 
> [8A] Some generally agreed-upon tenets of proper manners fell outside the purview of the club, such as the classic "always get the young man's name and address," which was more intended for people who might find themselves expecting more than a repeat visit from that same young man. [return to text]
> 
> [9A] It was not the sort of bookshop that could have molested him of its own volition; had he wanted that, it was several streets away, though still firmly in Soho. However, such an interaction would have left Crowley at least as unsatisfied as rattling Aziraphale's doorknob and walking away. [return to text]


	2. Chapter 2

In order to get ahead on the next month's quota, Crowley returned to the gentlemen's club that evening, ostensibly searching for people to encourage into lust or perhaps gluttony. He did not admit to himself that he might be looking for anything or, more to the point, anyone else.

When he entered without the protective screen of a handful of college boys, he found the weight of the attendees' gaze upon him, undressing him and assessing his assets as efficiently as possible. He used it to inflict jealousy, most specifically, by spotting a familiar angelic face in the crowd and making a beeline for him. "Cyril, dear chap," he said, putting on a façade of drunkenness that would not be false for long, if Crowley had his way. "It's been too long."

"Has it, dear boy?" Aziraphale asked. "When we were together only yesterday?"

Crowley put his hand on Aziraphale's arm and leaned into his personal space, close enough to whisper in his ear, "You never did show me the library here."

"It's down the hall to your left, third door on the right," Aziraphale says, backing up a step. "Surely you can find it on your own, and with one of your many admirers."

"It would be far more enjoyable to visit it with a knowledgeable guide," Crowley said, closing the distance between them again to make it clear to his so-called admirers that he'd made a decision about tonight's company. It was the sort of closeness that a man like Cyril would permit when Aziraphale might not, or at least, not with Crowley. "I'd hate to miss any of the ins and outs. Won't you show me how to spread a few covers open?"

Aziraphale's cheek was delightfully rosy. "I rather think you know how to read without my assistance."

"But I would enjoy your assistance," Crowley said. "Why, I could read to you, if you liked." In the days since he'd discovered Aziraphale's moonlighting as a club librarian, he had had several fevered thoughts on the subject of reading the sort of materials appropriate to the club aloud, and several piquant thoughts of what it would sound like if Aziraphale were to read them aloud to him.

"I am more than capable of reading to myself," Aziraphale said firmly.

"Why, Cyril, are you tired of my company so soon?" Crowley touched his arm, shivering at the sensation of contact, and gave him a forlorn look. Any self-respecting gentleman on the prowl, or even sitting sedately in the shade watching others on safari, would surely take all the youthful attention he could get.

A dark look crossed Aziraphale's face for a moment, like a cloud scudding across the sky, then cleared. "It's not you, dear boy," he said, with considerably more warmth. "Things are a bit complicated outside these walls, and sometimes that complexity extends inwards."

"Not too much, I hope. Everyone needs a place where they can let their hair down."

"I am not overly constrained here." Aziraphale lowered his voice such that a human might have trouble hearing him and added, "Not yet."

"What would hold you back?" Crowley asked, out of a professional interest in temptation and the giving into it.

"It's a bit odd spending time with someone I know outside the club, honestly."

"But here you're good old Cyril, aren't you?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. More so with the gentlemen who only know Cyril, while you--well."

"Feel free to show me what Cyril is like, and let everyone else wonder why you're spending time with a new chap." Crowley knew Aziraphale's moods, and none of them had made him think he might find the angel here. He was curious what went into the separation of selves. "Have a drink with me, Cyril."

That got him a sideways look from Aziraphale for a moment before he said, "Gladly, Antonio."

Sitting at a small table with a bottle and two glasses on it was a ritual they had enacted many times in the past, on various continents and with all manner of fermented goods to ease their conversations over the years. It was a little different in the club, as their knees were close enough to brush together, and there was no social pressure to back off as there might have been in any other establishment in the city where, to be fair, there was plenty of space between the tables if the sitters wanted to keep from touching one another. They sat together and watched the byplay of the people around them as they made their way through their first bottle, Aziraphale filling Crowley in on the best interpersonal stories--though he would never lower himself to do something like gossip.

"How is your library?" Crowley asked when he gave Aziraphale's glass its first top-up from the second bottle.

"Oh, you know how these things are," Aziraphale said. "Sometimes things go on well enough for months at a time, and then some rowdy university lads get it into their heads to have it off against the shelves and you're cleaning up for a week. Honestly, these boys have no idea how hard it is to find Catullus unexpurgated in these days."

"Did they?" Crowley asked. He tried to remember all of what he'd pressed on his erstwhile companions the week before. There had probably been plenty of lust, some of it at his instigation on top of all that they'd been feeling as a matter of course. If there had also been some yearning in the direction of the library, well, they might have picked that up from Crowley. Conceivably.

"I'm surprised they didn't tell you about it. Matthew and Toots--though what kind of a name 'Toots' is for a grown man I don't pretend to know--went on something of a spree in the library, not long after you left last week."

"I had no idea," Crowley said, and this time his innocence was sincere. "Weren't there enough private rooms available?"

"You know how boys are," Aziraphale said, irritably. "They probably didn't bother to check, just found the first place with a door that closed and went at each other." He drinks, then sets his glass down and asks, "You're sure you knew nothing about it?"

"I would have advised them against doing anything in there for their own safety, knowing how you feel about the old place. I bet you can be a bit of an avenging angel when it comes to telling people off?"

Aziraphale went distinctly red and waved this away with one hand. "We must forgive, mustn't we? And they are only young."

"And foolish," Crowley put in. "Don't forget foolish."

"And you didn't know?" once more, as if this is some incisive inquiry that will find the truth Crowley has hidden.

"I am as innocent as the driven snow," Crowley said, his eyes wide behind his glasses. "I wouldn't dare risk your wrath by sending them to mess up your volumes." [1B]

"All right," Aziraphale said reluctantly. "I chased them out of there like cats with their tails on fire, so I don't suppose they'll be inclined to do it again."

"You never know, with students. Once they get into a place and you see one or two of them, you turn around and there's a whole infestation."

Aziraphale blinked at him solemnly and rather drunkenly. "Do you think so?"

"I've seen it happen over and over again," Crowley opined. "Especially if you've already got yourself a breeding pair, so to speak, you might have a whole nest of them."

Aziraphale chuckled. "If I can pick you up on a small point there, they weren't breeding, as such."

"But they were giving it the old college try, weren't they?"

He went rather pink. "Oh, yes, you could certainly call it that."

"Then we'd better go make sure there aren't any more of them," Crowley said, and picked up the bottle to take with them.

Aziraphale stood more steadily than Crowley had expected. Perhaps he'd decided to sober up. "We should check, yes."

They made their way out of the club's common room, Aziraphale leading with quiet steps as though he wants to sneak up on anyone who happens to be misusing his library, Crowley carrying the half-full bottle as reinforcements. "It would be a shame if we found anyone misusing the club's library," Crowley said as they got closer to the door, in a voice pitched to carry.

"It would be a disgrace," Aziraphale agreed. "Twice in a week, why, they might take away all the books and subdivide the place into another set of private rooms."

"We can't have that," Crowley said, and leaned against the wall near the library door.

"No, we mustn't." From the other side of the door, Aziraphale pulled it open, out of the way as if he expected someone to come barreling out and run into him.

There was nothing from inside the library but silence. "I think it's empty," Crowley stage-whispered to him.

"Or they're hiding, the devils."

The library was a small, snug room lined with bookshelves that smelled of pages and leather. They prowled among the shelves, peeking around the edges at the last possible second, and surprised no one at all. "It seems we're alone," Crowley said, when they'd crested the farthest shelf from the door and were hidden behind it.

"So it does," Aziraphale said. He seemed to relax into himself in the presence of the books, his posture loosening and lightening considerably. [2B]

"No one is defiling your books today," Crowley said, leaning a little closer.

"Indeed not," Aziraphale said, and took half a step toward Crowley.

They kissed one another in the breathless silence of the library, where the books absorbed any sound they might have made: if their lips did not meet perfectly the first time, if one of them gasped, if the other hummed against his mouth, the books took in all of that and said nothing, watching impassively as if they had seen thousands of trysts and would see thousands more.

Crowley didn't know which of them had begun the kiss and neither did he know which of them ended it several slick seconds later. They broke apart, breathless, and he said, "Please."

"Please what, Antonio?" Aziraphale asked.

Crowley licked his lips. "Fuck, please, Cyril--"

This kiss was decidedly Crowley's doing, unless Aziraphale had leaned in farther and faster. It was impossible to separate their arcs from one another, and the heady lust that permeated the club throbbed through them even in the shelter of the books, which might reasonably have been expected to soak up the vibrations the way that they absorbed sound.

Perhaps the buffer of the books was overloaded, because they kept on kissing until Aziraphale took a step back and said, "Not here."

"Why not?" Crowley asked.

"The books."

"If we close the door," Crowley said, "we can lean against it."

"The books!" Aziraphale protested, but Crowley cut him off with another kiss before he got any farther. It was a small library, and only the matter of a few stumbling, entwined steps before they closed the door. "My dear," Aziraphale protested, the next moment Crowley stopped kissing him.

The pause was only long enough for Crowley to fall to his knees and open Aziraphale's flies, whereupon he stopped anymore complaints with his mouth, and Aziraphale lost his words in a gasp of "Oh, my dear."

The benefit to spending intimate time with a demon was that they had a very long time to practice any maneuvers they wanted to try on a partner. Angels had similarly had a host of opportunities, whether or not they'd taken the chances as they came, and merely by benevolent observation they could learn etiquette.

Therefore Aziraphale did not bury his fingers in Crowley's hair and grind forward into his mouth, which was something of a disappointment to Crowley, who put his hands on Aziraphale's hips and urged him forward. After all, the secondary benefit of being a man-shaped being rather than a man was that the rules of human corporation were somewhat flexible, and on the rare occasion when Crowley wanted his throat fucked, he could take it just as hard and deep as his partner could give it to him.

Aziraphale's body was fully cognizant of the possibilities even if his mind was concerned with the outer trappings of human copulation, and he thrust energetically into Crowley's mouth, one hand barely touching his hair, the other covering his own mouth as if the books would not consume every noise he made and preserve the sanctity of the library.

Crowley groaned around him, though no one more than a few inches from him could have heard it thanks to the insulating shelves, and swallowed him down with such gusto that Aziraphale said, "Oh, my dear, I can't," all too soon, and patted his cheek urgently.

Crowley let him go just long enough to say, "Of course you can," before taking him deeply again, heedless of little human niceties like teeth or gag reflexes.

Aziraphale's book-muffled moan barely reached Crowley's ears, but he didn't need the auditory signal to know that the angel was reaching orgasm. Crowley took everything he had to give until Aziraphale finally tugged at his hair with a quiet, "Really, my dear."

When he relented, it took the whisk of a hand to tidy Aziraphale up and button him away again, and to put Crowley's hair to rights for good measure. His lips stayed plump and damp with exertion an instant longer, until he stood up and Aziraphale gave him a fierce look, as though he'd remembered how to avenge his wronged literary materials.

"Not in the library, Antonio," he said, and opened the door, turning away from him.

"Wait," Crowley said, but Aziraphale was already out the library door. "Talk to me for a moment, please."

"You don't seem in the least bit interested in talking," Aziraphale said tartly. "Or in listening to the one thing I've told you consistently, which is: not in the library."

"I wanted--"

Aziraphale turns on him in the corridor just before they reach the common room. "What did you want, Antonio? To break the club rules and be taken off the rolls, like your friends? If that isn't what you wanted, you've tripped up."

"I wanted you," Crowley said, because it was the simplest answer. In the carefully-kept library with the dusty smell of books[3B] in his nose, he'd wanted nothing more than Aziraphale, and Aziraphale had been as much a part of what they'd done as he had.

"Didn't I tell you the club's guiding tenet?" Aziraphale asked with asperity. "You must ask before you do things, here, and that is two strikes against you when I only need one to have you struck off."

"Why would you--what?" Crowley asked. "I asked--you had every opportunity to say no."

"You haven't heeded a word I've said here, have you?" Aziraphale put his arm round Crowley's shoulders and hurried him through the hall as a police officer might chivvy someone. "You weren't listening, you weren't thinking, and you are done here." He rushed Crowley into the antechamber where he'd had to be vouched for, some days before.

"This is nonsense," Crowley objected. He was having rather upsetting memories of an incident nearly six thousand years past when it turned out he had said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time. "I was listening, and nothing happened to your sodding books or to you, except what you wanted."

"Henderson, eject this man immediately," Aziraphale said, finally letting go of Crowley.

Crowley considered stopping time to have a proper argument, but he realized that if he did so, Aziraphale would just start it again and have him thrown out. "You don't have to eject me, I'm going," he said, and ignored the doorman's words as he left.

He could not quite ignore Aziraphale's harsh "He broke the rules," but that was because it was Aziraphale saying it, bright and cold as any other angel.

On the street, Crowley walked away from the club entrance so that if Henderson came after him or Aziraphale followed him, they wouldn't find him loitering around looking like he wanted to be let back inside. He walked to Aziraphale's bookshop on the grounds that they needed to talk about what had just happened, and the only way to find the angel consistently was the shop.

The bookshop was as tightly shut as it had been earlier in the day, and Crowley blessed under his breath at length. He wanted to get extremely drunk and throw himself on Aziraphale's dubious mercy, but getting drunk and throwing himself at Aziraphale had proven to be a dicey[4B] proposition once already.

He settled for a pub in between the club and the bookshop, and a small working on the shop door so that when it opened, he would know it.

He was considerably the worse for wear when the doorbell miracle tinkled in his ear.[5B] He pulled himself to his feet, settled the tab with a wobbly wave of his hand, and went to the bookshop, where the door was locked again but there was a light on in the flat.

The door's lock didn't stand a chance against his determination. "Aziraphale," he called as he went in, "what the fuck was that?"

"What was what, dear boy?" Aziraphale asked, a candle in his hand as if he needed it to see in the dark.[6B]

"That!" Crowley said, waving a hand. "You kissed me and then--and then you frogmarched me out like I'd wiped my ass with your books when I hadn't touched any of them."

"If you mean the events in the club this evening, you must recall that I clearly told you two of the rules, and you broke both of them."

"That's mad," Crowley said. "Just--I didn't have to ask you, did I, because you were right there in your sainted library when I kissed you and you kissed me back, and you wanted it enough to risk the books, you did."

Aziraphale sighed hard enough that the candle snuffed out. "One of the basic rules of being who and what I am is that I cannot always have what I want, my dear. Surely you don't need me to explain that to you."

"But you did, you did!" Crowley waved a drunken finger at him. "You took what you wanted and then--threw me out. Like a pisspot out the window."

"One doesn't anymore, you know," Aziraphale said with the fervor of someone who rarely got to explain anything but who in this one instance knew something more than Crowley did. "The sewers, you see."

"But you did it anyway! Into the sewer, splash!" Crowley heard himself and reflected that he was not making the best argumentation he was capable of. "I'm too drunk," he said, and sobered up with a wince. The angel in the darkened bookshop did not make any more sense without the benefit of the alcohol in his bloodstream. "You took what you wanted and chucked me. What were you thinking?"

"My reputation," Aziraphale protested. "If it got about that I'd been carrying on in the library--"

"So miracle them all a little forgetting." Crowley raised his hand, ready to snap his fingers. "I'll make it so none of them even remember I was there."

"That's cheating," Aziraphale said miserably. "I've been going there for years, don't you see? They know me there."

"They know Cyril, whoever that's supposed to be."

"That's who you--who you kissed," Aziraphale insisted. "You've known me for how many millennia, and at the first sight of Cyril the somewhat Uranian librarian you went weak in the knees."

"I was looking at you the whole time," Crowley said, wondering if he had done something wrong when he'd tried to sober up and somehow made Aziraphale three times as drunk by mistake. "None of that was about Cyril. There isn't any Cyril."

"Yes, there is. Cyril exists at the club. He looks after their books and sometimes he dances."

Crowley choked on a laugh. He remembered Heaven's harmonies and the way that at most, angels would sway very slightly to them. "You don't dance. You can't."

"I know, but Cyril can." Aziraphale folded his arms. "I'm telling you, you're interested in him, not me."

"Bollocks."

"That's the other thing," Aziraphale said. "Do you know how strange it would be if Cyril didn't have urges? But I don't have them. That was all Cyril. Apparently you found him unbearably charming, while you think I'm old and fusty. Is it the dancing? You didn't even dance with him."

Crowley stared at him, seeing only a confused or deluded angel who meant every word he was saying. "You honestly think I l--kissed 'Cyril' and not you?"[7B]

"Yes," Aziraphale said firmly. "Now if you'd kindly go, I'll lock up for the night."

"You're cracked," Crowley told him. "Everything 'Cyril' is and does is you, down to fretting over some poxy library of books people wank over. What would I want with some human? Why would I kiss him?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Aziraphale said, "but as you've gone thousands of years without kissing me, I'm sure it won't bother you to keep on as we have been."

"No, I suppose not," Crowley said, stung. "If that's what you want."

"That's precisely what I want," Aziraphale said.

Crowley drew himself up with as much dignity as he could. "Then I'll say no more about it," he said, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1B] He did not say, "as the driven slush," as Mae West hadn't said it first and he couldn't very well steal it from her yet, but he would have done if he could've. [return to text]
> 
> [2B] Neither his wings nor his aura made a literal appearance at that point, though Crowley was a biased observer and might have reported a slight glow around him, if he'd been asked. Then again, he'd destroyed his alcohol tolerance by sleeping for decades at a go without waking up for a drink. [return to text]
> 
> [3B] And the inimitable scent of angel-inhabited flesh, ozone and the kind of spices humans can only dream of at the best of times. [return to text]
> 
> [4B] Crowley rolled snake eyes. [return to text]
> 
> [5B] He was not so badly off that anything else had tinkled in his ear, but only because Aziraphale kept somewhat more regular hours than the shop's opening would imply. [return to text]
> 
> [6B] Demons can see in the dark, as it is their natural element. Angels don't need silly things like photons to show them the truth of the universe when they care to gaze upon it, though truth, like beauty, may only be skin-deep. [return to text]
> 
> [7B] Crowley made air-quotes with his fingers, because of course he did. Who else did you think came up with that? [return to text]


	3. Chapter 3

Things were cooler between Crowley and Aziraphale for some years, though Crowley kept making overtures of friendship.[1C]

And then there was the Antichrist on earth, and all their previous disagreements had to be set aside so that they could deal with the threat.

Crowley said absolutely nothing about the club some one hundred years previously during the time when he and Aziraphale were working closely together, and Aziraphale hadn't breathed a word about it in all the intervening years. Crowley had given up ever resolving whatever the angel's issue about "Cyril" had been, and abandoned the thought of pursuing some kind of relationship with him beyond that of entities united in trying to save the planet.

They had too much on their mind to do anything else.

Then the apocalypse didn't happen.

Once they were back in their appropriate bodies, Crowley and Aziraphale found themselves somewhat at loose ends. Compared to the previous eleven years, when they'd been balancing monitoring Warlock[2C] with their everyday temptation and thwarting, the days stretched out emptily, seeming endless with their lack of obligations.

There were any number of things they could've discussed from the previous centuries when Crowley went to Aziraphale's shop with a bottle of Château Pétrus 2005, but something about the heat of the day and the smell of the warm books made Crowley brave enough to say, "So, did you ever go back to that club and salvage your reputation?"

"What club?" Aziraphale asked, toying with his wine glass for a moment before he froze. "Oh. That club."

Crowley waited for the rest of the question to percolate through Aziraphale's mind.

"There wasn't much salvaging that needed to be done," Aziraphale said, at length. "You'd erased all the evidence--we had, between us--and all anyone knew was that Cyril went into the library with a friend and came storming out in a rage a bit later, got him struck off the rolls, and then went back to being, erm, Cyril."

"Quiet, bookish Cyril who everyone cried on when they had their hearts broken."

"Yes, quite." Aziraphale swirled his wine in his glass and watched it go round and round. "I'm afraid I behaved rather badly towards you regarding Cyril."

"Mm," Crowley said, and waited for the angel's conscience to prick him further.[3C]

"It's possible--well, it's possible I had some feelings for Antonio that I was unwilling to face at the time."

"There was no such person as Antonio," Crowley pointed out in as calm a voice as he and the Pétrus could muster in concert. "I wasn't pretending to be anyone but myself."

"You were, though," Aziraphale protested. "You were pretending to be someone I could touch, and you weren't, not really. And I was pretending to be someone you could touch, and I wasn't, not really."

"We weren't entirely those people, maybe," Crowley allowed, merely as a way to get Aziraphale to grapple with the present rather than being hung up on the past. "Here's the good bit--it's not as though we have anyone Up There or Down There who would care what we did."

"I suppose not," Aziraphale said.

"So your reputation is safe, in a way, because it's already blown to bits. You're Aziraphale, the angel who somehow withstands hellfire. Does it matter if you kiss demons, too?"

"Not demons plural, surely."

"Well, no. I was thinking one in particular, if you're willing to try it again."

Aziraphale sighed. "I've been willing for, ah, some time now. The question, my dear, is are you willing to give me a second chance?"

Crowley let the question hang until Aziraphale asked in a small voice, "Crowley?"

"Yes, all right, yes, of course I am." Crowley rolls his eyes behind his glasses. "Only I couldn't just tell you that straight off, could I, or you'd think I was a push-over."

"You are certainly not a push-over." Aziraphale set down his glass and smiled at him hopefully. "Do you think we could try it again now?"

Crowley was much too impatient to make him wait any longer.

[fin]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1C] Crowley sometimes got lost in a fugue state, wishing he and Aziraphale were in the sort of relationship where they could toccata each other, but there were too many other complications. [return to text]
> 
> [2C] Co-parenting can affect even the longest-standing relationship, no matter how much help they can recruit from other sources. [return to text]
> 
> [3C] Far from the only prick Crowley had on his mind at that moment. [return to text]


End file.
